CM Punk Reacts to the Latest AEW Return Report With a Rocky III Meme

By Connor Casey

CM Punk took to Instagram on Wednesday hours after a new report about his impending return dropped online. Sean Ross Sapp reported on Fightful Select that Punk is open to returning to AEW programming and has pitched ideas of either working with or completely separate from Kenny Omega and The Young Bucks despite last year's "Brawl Out" incident. Punk was stripped of the AEW World Championship following the locker room brawl and all mention of him was removed from AEW programming, but he was also dealing with a freshly-torn triceps and would have to be off TV for a good chunk of time regardless. 

Punk posted a photo from the cover of Rocky III, with his face photoshopped over Rocky Balboa holding the boxing world heavyweight championship. This was obviously a reference to the situation involving Punk's return from injury last year and his two title matches with Jon Moxley. He wrote on an Instagram story last month that the original plan was for the Punk vs. Moxley world championship unification match to take place at All Out, only for Moxley to pitch the idea of a Rocky III-esque storyline where Punk would lose the unification match on TV in shockingly quick fashion then redeem himself at the pay-per-view. He admitted he'd never seen a Rocky movie and hated the idea, but went ahead with it because Tony Khan liked the idea. Punk also accused Moxley of refusing to drop the title to him.

Moxley then responded to Punk's outburst on The Sessions days later — "There is nothing that has unfolded. It's f—king annoying. Just because somebody said some stupid s—t on social media, that's not news, but it is and it ends up being a thing. I don't want to get dragged into this dumb s—. I could f—ing unload on a lot of f—ing people right now. When I start getting dragged into this s—, it tempts me to do that, but I'm not going to sink to that level."

AEW Dynamite Full Card (April 12, 2023)

  • AEW International Championship: Orange Cassidy vs. Buddy Matthews
  • Swerve Strickland vs. Darby Allin
  • Keith Lee vs. Chris Jericho
  • Jon Moxley & Claudio Castagnoli vs. Brandon Cutler & Michael Nakazawa
  • Luchasaurus & Christian Cage Return
  • Riho & Skye Blue vs. Ruby Soho & Toni Storm
0comments

Related:

Start the Conversation

of